Grand Days (36 page)

She walked on, her knees a little shaky, but quite coolly replacing her glove. She thought that a few people had seen it. Not that it mattered.

The young man and she were not, in playground parlance, ‘even' but it was something of a retribution.

It was said that revenge should be undertaken unemotionally if it is to be successful. She was not sure what her emotions had been at that moment of small revenge.

Sophie Langer, from the ILO, let the Drama Club use the big front room in her apartment for rehearsals, ‘As long as I don't, as honorary President, have to sit through them.'

She'd also added, ‘I will adjudicate tantrums only among nation states but never among theatrical types.'

But this night there were no rehearsals. Caroline Bailey was to read from her novel set at the League, and the drama club cast and supporters and a few outsiders were crammed into the big room. Rumours about the novel had been going around for months.

Caroline was a South African in her twenties, who tried to pass as English. She was only a filing clerk but was well educated and proud of her English accent, which Edith acknowledged was very good.

Caroline had masses of self-assurance and said she wasn't at all nervous about reading to an audience. She said she believed that stories were really meant to be read or recited and that she would do what Dickens did and, one day, tour, reading her work.

Edith sat on the floor of Sophie's big room next to Florence and Victoria, jammed in with the others, nearly all women. Ambrose would have nothing to do with it and some of the other men had been scared off from what they'd heard about the book. Perhaps everyone there secretly hoped to be in the book. Favourably. The lights went out and the audience sat in darkness for a minute or so. Then a reading light came on, revealing in half-light the face of Caroline who sat on a high-
backed oak chair next to a table on which there was a vase containing a single red tulip, a water jug, a glass, the reading lamp, and her manuscript in a leather folder. She wore a shirt-blouse buttoned down the front, a large floppy bow tie, and a long jacket almost to her knees. Her hat was a striking stylised turban. It was all very theatrical but passed Edith's tests except for the tulip. Edith was still fascinated by seeing tulips and thought that they seemed to be made of wax.

Caroline opened her manuscript with studied care.

She looked up and around at her audience before speaking, as if she'd been told to do it. ‘In this rendition, I intend to jump around a little in the story. It deals with my male character, Humphrey Hume — described in the opening pages of the novel as a “lanky young man who no rain could dismay and, despite his enthusiasm for work, was liked by everyone”.' Caroline made herself pause here to collect laughter from the audience, which she did receive. She continued, ‘Some of his colleagues are discussing him in the Office.' She cleared her throat, took a sip of water, and looked up from her manuscript.

For all her boasting about going on tour like Dickens, Caroline was shaking a little as she held the leather-bound manuscript.

She added to her introduction by saying, ‘First, we learn something of Humphrey Hume from his colleague Barlow, less well loved.' She began reading. ‘“Barlow was a Jew with a dolorous face. Long ago he had done something wrong, no one knew what, but everyone knew it was something dreadful, which had ruined a brilliant career and made him glad enough to use his trick of languages to earn his keep as a translator in the Office. His life had stopped when he did this dreadful thing, whatever it was, and now he led a posthumous existence, drinking a spectacular amount, and from time to time, just in time, in fact, doing a month's work in a night.”'

There was uneasy laughter as people recognised, or thought they recognised, this character as Liverright. Some looked around in case he was there. Edith thought it a cruel portrayal. He and Caroline were friends although something might have gone wrong there.

Caroline continued, ‘“It was odd to picture him eating, getting into his pyjamas, or shaving in the morning. It was as horrible as imagining a dead man doing these things. In the Office he appeared in character as ‘that disgusting beast, Barlow', frightening the typists by talking innuendo to them in whatever might be their own tongue and rolling half-drunk about the corridors. Some of the men, especially Mr Whibley, used to drop in to see him, lured by the malevolent charm of his conversation, and his appalling comments on the lives of their colleagues. Sometimes he described alleged vices and practices among their colleagues so unnatural and far-fetched that if the Office had, in fact, held one single specimen who practised them, it would have been an unique organisation indeed.”'

While many might have guessed that Barlow was Liverright, Edith alone thought she knew, perhaps along with Liverright, that some of the unnatural practices alluded to were not as far from the Office as Caroline thought. It was amusing that Caroline thought the unnatural practices existed only in Barlow's imagination. And Edith recalled meeting Liverright's malevolence on her first day.

‘“Mr Whibley, monologist by nature, in Barlow's company humbly took the part of feeder. Now this name, now that, he placed the lamb or the goat in the jaws of his lion and sat back to hear the bones cracking. This time, he asked Barlow about Humphrey Hume. Barlow replied, ‘He went to the War. A medical man. I don't somehow see him grinning behind a bayonet, but he was there, and no one, on either side, put a bullet
into him. But it smashed him just the same, smashed his little soul. When it was over, there was nothing left and he dared not feel about in the dark for bits which might have been worth sticking together — he dared not. If you can imagine a dying man who thinks he can be cured by telling himself and his friends that he is quite well. Then, in the very nick, as I said, the politicians made this place, the Office, and he sprang to it, and pulled it round him, warm and comfortable, clerks and typewriters and committees and minutes and resolutions, and he lifted up his shaking voice and cried, “There shall be no more war!” Everyone said, “What an excellent young man!” They are still saying it; he looks fine, talks fine, feels fine, but
n'y touchez pas, il est brisé!
'”'

Victoria said to Edith in a whisper, ‘Is Humphrey Hume Ambrose?'

She whispered back, ‘I don't know. Could be.' The description of Hume could fit a few of the men who were in the Secretariat, especially the men who'd fought in the War. His being a medical doctor narrowed it somewhat.

Caroline went on. ‘“‘And when will his crash come?' Mr Whibley asked Barlow.

‘“‘Never,' said Barlow. ‘He's saved. Got religion. The Office is his religion.'

‘“Barlow sat smoking, a great bulk, staring with dull eyes at the patch of sky outside the window, surrounded by his own peculiar atmosphere of idleness, and defeat, and emptiness.”'

Caroline looked up from her manuscript and said, ‘We next meet Humphrey who has just returned from a disappointing interview with the Chief Secretary … “The moment had appeared to him ripe for intervention by the Office in a peculiarly abominable situation in the Near East. He had pressed his point with fervour. The Chief Secretary, of necessity, had listened with
attention, since the ultimate responsibility for Humphrey's actions rested with him. He had been very kind, had agreed with Humphrey down to the last detail, and then, blandly, genially, almost as if he were continuing to agree, he had vetoed any action in the affair.

‘“‘Too expensive,' he said. ‘I'm sorry — as sorry as you are. We might do something' — by ‘we' this time, he meant the British Government, not the Office — ‘but any action on the Office's part would be resented by the French: not a hope of cooperation from them; and if they did not cooperate, none of the little fellows on the spot, who all look to the French, would do anything, and then where would we be? — but you've had your head too close to it these last weeks; you see it a little out of proportion.'

‘“‘They've appealed to us for help,' urged Humphrey.”'

There were titters at hearing Sir Eric and the procedures of the League presented so critically.

‘“‘If you like, we can circulate these telegrams to the member governments without comment. I think we had better, and in acknowledging the telegrams, say they have been circulated.'

‘“‘I should so much prefer—'

‘“‘To do something, and explain later. Of course you would, it's perfectly natural; but I'm sorry, it's also perfectly impossible.'

‘“Humphrey returned to his room and threw the pile of telegrams on the table and went and stood in the bay window overlooking the courtyard, and stared at the insipid lake with its transparent summer blue. It was the pale blue which little girls couple with pale pink as their favourite colours. He shifted his gaze to Captain Creighton-Downes's bull-terrier chained up in the courtyard.”'

Again at the mention of the bull terrier, there were titters of recognition; everyone knew whose dog this was. Caroline looked out and smiled at the shared recognition, enjoying all signs of appreciation for whatever reason.

‘“Humphrey tried patiently to accommodate himself to his disappointment, seeking with his agile mind for some sidelight of action. He yearned for the life of action. Instead he circulated telegrams.”'

Edith smiled to herself as she recognised her own urges to a life of action but she didn't share Caroline's sneer at Sir Eric's decision. Caroline's was the typical view of someone who had no feel for political reality.

Caroline then turned pages. ‘We move on now. Humphrey's in love with a woman named June who dies tragically in a mysterious operation.' Caroline paused, waiting for signs of recognition at the mention of this office scandal. There was a rustle of recognition — one of the girls from typing had died just before Edith'd come to the League. At the time, everyone said she had been trying to terminate her pregnancy. She'd been considered morally loose.

Caroline continued. ‘This part is before she dies. It is set at a dance at Maxim's. I think we've all been there.' Chuckles of acknowledgement. ‘Perhaps too often,' she added, again winning appreciative laughs.

‘“‘You've come?' cried June, as Humphrey arrived at the dance. Among the heightened complexions and brutally emphasised prettiness of the other women, June looked, at first sight, almost plain. Her hair was not even tidy, and her dress was not suitable and was badly put on; she was careless. Then she tilted her head casually, and it was immediately obvious that beauty was the simplest thing in the world for her, and that her beauty
was unlike anyone else's in the room. She laid her hand on the lapel of Humphrey's coat.

‘“‘Dance the next with me,' she said.

‘“The orchestra began to play a waltz, the ‘Clair de lune', and the manager, according to his custom, obliterated the lights, all except the green ones.

‘“‘Dance this with me,' repeated June in her alluring voice.

‘“Humphrey, with a dazed smile, put his arm around her. She laid her head on his breast, and they moved away to the heaving tune.

‘“Heaving, throbbing, almost breaking with emotion, the tune reverberated with a brazen laughter, and heaved and throbbed and almost broke again; under the green light, eyes gleamed out of the pools of darkness, lips were black and heavy, joined to the shadow they cast on the chin, and the arms of the women looked unearthly against the black sleeves of the men. The couples moved with close-pressed thighs and swooning looks and clung together as if they were united in the last intimacy of love.”'

There were chuckles of embarrassed recognition at the dance hall behaviour. Caroline threw the room a quick smile.

‘“The room grew very hot, but the music was merciless: forty francs per couple, and they got their money's worth. The manager appeared during one of the brief intervals followed by waiters carrying paper caps and toys and balloons on trays. Everyone shrieked with joy and the men fought to get toys for the women, and the women made the men put on paper caps.”'

Caroline looked up and said that the romance between Humphrey Hume and June took off from here and ended tragically in the mysterious operation. She was enjoying saying the words ‘mysterious operation'. She went on to read other sections
about the allure of June, the office vamp, and its havoc on other men in the Office but most of all on Humphrey.

‘After her death in the mysterious operation, Humphrey is devastated. The other men who had been involved with her all distance themselves and try to avoid being implicated. Humphrey, already a man broken by the War, cannot avoid showing his feelings when faced with this second catastrophe in his life. He alone publicly acknowledges his involvement with the girl by going to visit her in hospital at her final hour. Captain Downes, an old colleague from the War, also working at the Office, tries to look after Humphrey in the only way he knows, and takes him out on the lake in his boat.'

Again, titters of recognition.

‘Finally, we meet Barlow again: “‘Downes thinks fresh air will cure anything,' said Barlow. ‘Even a broken heart. And so it would; fresh air would cure Downes of anything. May I shut the window?'”'

There were peals of laughter at the mention of windows and fresh air as the audience willingly turned away from the unhappy part of the story. A struggle went on in the League offices between the those who wanted the windows open, usually the British and colonials, and the Continentals who wanted the windows closed. These tussles were called ‘international incidents'. Last year one of the drama club sketches had shown a French man committing suicide by standing in a draught.

‘“‘You may shut the window,' said Whibley. ‘If you will take that red handkerchief off your throat.'

‘“‘It isn't a handkerchief; it's a fine-quality scarf, worn for two reasons.'

‘“‘What are they?' Mr Whibley had the curiosity to ask.

‘“‘Loyalty to my political party, and loyalty to my body which I protect from draughts, and which I place above
elegance.' Barlow looked down at his bulging waistcoat.

‘“‘Ugh,' said Captain Downes. ‘You don't really believe in that socialist stuff?'